Bill Jefferys wrote:
>
> >At 2:25 PM +0100 3/26/02, Juergen Schmidhuber wrote:
>
> >But unfortunately the anthropic principle does not have any
> >predictive power. It does NOT predict there won't be any flying
> >rabbits tomorrow.
>
> But Hoyle did use the AP to predict specific facts about nuclear
> energy levels, which were subsequently found to be true. So your
> first statement isn't correct, IMO.
>
> Bill
The anthropic principle only says that the conditional probability
of finding yourself in a universe compatible with your existence
equals 1. So all the AP predicts is that our universe will remain
compatible with our existence. This is trivial.
You are claiming the AP necessarily implies a specific fact about
nuclear energy levels? I greatly doubt that - can you give a proof?
Even if you could: there are many possible continuations of our
universe that do allow for our continued existence and in which the
energy levels are as they are now and in which flying rabbits do
occur. My point is that the AP cannot explain at all why they
should not occur (as long as they don't kill us).
But the theory of universal inductive inference can:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/unilearn.html
Juergen Schmidhuber
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/
Received on Wed Mar 27 2002 - 00:24:34 PST